Why does God allow evil to exist in the world?
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Why does God allow evil to exist in the world?
daisymarygoldr on January 10, 2011 at 6:24 pm
Good question that leads to other similar questions:
Why do polar opposites exist? How can we know hot if there is no cold? How can we admire a rose if there was no thorn? How can we know joy if we have not experienced sorrow? How can we appreciate light if there is no darkness?
To everything there is a purpose and the negative lends meaning to the positive extreme. Good knows no meaning without the existence of evil.
How will we know God who is good if He is not contrasted against a background of evil? God allows evil to exist so that we may turn away from evil, and choose to do good. Psalm 34:14
zero_g on January 10, 2011 at 7:15 pm
According to Genesis, Evil always existed, we just became aware of it when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. So why did he put the tree there? I think it was so that we could have knowledge of Evil AND Good, as daisymarygoldr said. I’d say he was confident that we would choose good over evil, when given the choice.
Rachie on January 12, 2011 at 4:37 pm
I think the reason why there is evil is because God loved us and gave us free will. He gave Lucifer free will and he chose evil. He gave us free will and we allowed evil into our world. Evil exists because people have free will and they don’t choose God. Evil is only the absence of God. Just like cold is the absence of heat and darkness is the absence of light. When people refuse to choose God, the only other thing they choose is evil. And God doesn’t push us to choose Him or love Him because He loves us and wants us to genuinely love Him as well. But He cannot be around sin because He is holy. When we sin it is evil because it is the absence of God, because He cannot be around sin.
Tyla808 on January 13, 2011 at 5:39 pm
I have similar opinions to zero_g, jeanneb, and Rachie. I believe that God’s Ways and Thoughts are so much higher than mine that I cannot ever know the “Bigger Picture” and master plan God has. I believe evil as existed…as stated in another comment, Lucifer made a choice before Eve was tempted and thus convinced Adam to partake of the fruit. God created the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil another piece of evidence that evil already existed. Anyway…
Scripture states that God is Good. If one believes that the word of God is Truth then it is safe to say that the opposite of Good is Evil. Then, logically speaking:
God = Good which means
No God = Evil or Another God(s) = Evil
If one believes what was written in Genesis then one must believe that God blessed us with freewill/ choice, created everything for a purpose like roses having thorns, He created an array of emotions from joy to anger, He created everything about our physiological makeup down to the smallest cell and sub-atomic particle…everything working together. He wired our brains and our bodies so that we, His creation can in turn create ourselves on a smaller scale. We can and have created technologies to help us survive as well as technologies that help to destoy life. God has no control over what we choose to create and/or how we choose to use it.
The question: Why does God allow evil to exist in the world?” is worded incorrectly I believe. God doesn’t “allow” evil. Evil is. Evil exist. It’s similar to saying we can blame God for evil or for evil things happening in the world. The question should be: “Why do people allow evil to manifest?” Evil in a sense is a state of “being.” What people fear and want stopped is the manifestation of it. Manifestation, It’s the tangible result of a thought becoming an action so forth and so on.
How can God control non-believers or countries of non-believers? How can God control the circumstances of how people were raised in order to assure that this child doesn’t grow up to be so mentally and emotionally troubled that they would want to open fire on a school, or rape people or murder people when they don’t even know Him or believe in His existence??? Is that God’s fault then that evil exists in their hearts? Is that God’s fault that His creation has chosen a different path? Perhaps He should have made us all robots so we would all be good and nothing bad would happen…yea that would make things easier for us…then we are not to blame for our own consequences.
It boils down to choice, choice, choice. People allow evil to exist in the world for whatever reason (all of which are listed in the bible) and they allow it to perpetuate and manifest itself.
allend on January 14, 2011 at 1:07 pm
We have to believe in God’s soverignty. Ultimatley He does control everything, and nothing that happens “good” or “evil,” happens without His permission. Someone had mentioned that His ways are so far above ours, that we cannot understand everything that He does.We cant forget that, we have to trust and believe that everything that happens, happens for a specific purpose that He has preordained. Many times, when we see things happening around us that we don’t understand, we tend to blame God, or at the very least, question Him. However, we have to again come back to my previous statements. We walk by faith and not by sight. What we started in the spirit,we have to finsih in the spirit. I think there are many things in life that we will never understand, and that’s okay, we don’t have to”get”everything. Leave it all in God’s hands, trust Him, walk by faith, renew our minds daily, and leave the rest of it to God. After all, He does have everything under control. Right?
daisymarygoldr on January 15, 2011 at 10:39 am
Good comments and discussion! To say God has allowed evil to reveal His mercy is to justify evil means to bring about a good end result—to say let us do evil that good may result (Rom 3:8 NIV).
Evil will not end. It will exist eternally in Hell (Rev 20:10). And how does someone exercise the freedom of choice if there is no good and evil to choose from?
To conclude my thoughts, God has created all things for Himself—light, darkness, peace, and evil (Isa 45:7 KJV). Evil is bad, disaster or calamity in other versions. And His purpose?
So that people may “know” that “I am the LORD” (Isa 45:6).
This does not mean He made evil. He created the angelic being- Satan, who chose to rebel against God and became the author of all evil. God knew Adam and Eve will choose evil. Therefore, Jesus Christ the Lamb of God was chosen as the sacrifice for sin even before the creation of the world (1 Peter 1:20). And that is the big story.
The big picture when seen through the lens of God’s Word clearly reveals that no one is good except God. That means all of us are evil. So, if God destroyed evil, then we will all be destroyed.
Thankfully, God allows evil to exist so that evil sinners like me will get an opportunity to choose God who is good and be saved.
God is so good that He does not want anyone of us to be destroyed but is patiently waiting for all to repent and be saved. And He is not dependent on the existence of evil but chooses to permit evil “to make the riches of His glory shine even brighter on those to whom He shows mercy” (Rom 9: 23).
It is not just non-believers who are evil. James exhorts Christian believers to get rid of all evil from our lives (James 1:21). And to accomplish that God allows a thorn in our flesh- the messenger of Satan to keep us humble and dependent on Him.
Also, God allows the evil tares to grow until harvest because if they are pulled up, then the good wheat will be also uprooted along with them.
St. Augustine said it best: “God judged it better to bring good out of evil, than to suffer no evil to exist.”
plumbape on January 15, 2011 at 11:50 pm
The sweet is not as sweet unless you’ve tasted
the bitter…
Thought you would want to know that “Gr8 Granny Jacobs” has passed on, God bless her!! I know she touched your heart as she did mine.
Be Blessed Daisy
Michael
allend on January 14, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Fantastic comment! Thank you for ssharing your thoughts, they were both encouraging as well as insiteful.